NTSB: No evidence of missile strike in TWA Flight 800 probe

ASHBURN, Va. — Federal safety investigators still won’t say whether they’ll reopen their investigation into the explosion that took down TWA Flight 800 in July 1996. But they want reporters to get the message: It wasn’t a missile.

The agency has no radar evidence for any kind of target “intercepting” the plane before the fatal blast, the NTSB’s Joseph Kolly said during a Tuesday media briefing meant as refresher on a disaster that has inspired years of persistent conspiracy theories.

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Witness testimony was not consistent with any kind of missile strike, he said. Neither were the patterns of burns and pitting among the passengers or seats. “Ultimately, we wound up ruling out a bomb or missile strike,” Kolly said.

Throughout the session, NTSB officials chided reporters for trying to ask about a controversial petition urging the agency to reconsider its investigation into the tragedy, which killed 230 people on a New York-to-Paris flight. The case has been getting newfound media attention driven by a documentary coming out this month that alleges a cover-up.

The NTSB says it’s still reviewing the petition, which was filed by a retired NTSB investigator and a physicist who were involved in the documentary. To meet the test for revisiting the investigation, the petitioners would have to show they have information that was unavailable during the original investigation or evidence that the board reached an erroneous conclusion.

Until then, NTSB spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said, it would be “very inappropriate” for the bureau to comment specifically on the petition.

“In all sincerity, I am upset about bringing this back up for the sake of people who lost folks in the accident,” said Kolly, director of the NTSB’s Office of Research and Engineering who was the fire and explosives investigator for the TWA 800 crash. “It’s just not a good thing.”

Still, the NTSB speakers took virtually every opportunity Tuesday to highlight portions of the agency’s final report that rebut allegations brought up by the petition.

They stressed the length and depth of the investigation, the agency’s most extensive to date. They ran through the news context of the time, showing how even in 1996, the agency and public were aware of terrorism as a potential cause. They held up metal plates showing typical bomb and missile damage, which they said were not reflected in the wreckage. They herded reporters out to a full-scale mock-up of the plane’s fuselage, its body charred and ripped, yet recognizable enough to twist the gut.

The tension is this: The NTSB found that the probable cause of the accident was a fuel tank explosion sparked by faulty wiring. But the petitioners insist the cause was something more nefarious, such as a bomb or shoulder-launched missile.